ERTA Upgrades with Radio-Assist 8

CLARET, France—The Ethiopian Radio and Television Agency is digitizing its radio service using Radio-Assist 8 from French firm Netia.

ERTA, which broadcasts daily in the 11 languages spoken by Ethiopia’s ethnic population, is implementing a project to boost its transmission coverage and migrate to file-based operations.

Local company United System Integrators has created a new workflow for ERTA that is based around the Radio-Assist 8 system. The new configuration, which covers all stages from production to broadcast, includes acquisition, sound file editing, scheduling, multicasting and administration.

In addition, the architecture of the system, says Netia, includes a centralized archiving facility into which its library of 50,000 hours of tape-based content is being digitized. ERTA is also adding a disaster recovery site for continuity in case of interruption.

“The system fits easily into our existing broadcasting environment and the ability to use multiple languages in the interface makes it very flexible for our staff,” said Haileab Abrha, deputy director general and head of media technology for ERTA.

“Radio-Assist 8 is the ideal platform for a broadcaster like ERTA to move from analog to digital operations,” said Michael Shebelle, general manager, USI. “With the access to the digitized archive that Radio-Assist 8 provides, and its range of production tools, ERTA's staff will be able to greatly increase the quality and efficiency of their work.”